The Bootleg Files: Vom Bäumlein, Das Andere Blätter Hat Gewollt

Posted on April 21, 2023 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 829: “Vom Bäumlein, Das Andere Blätter Hat Gewollt” (1940 animated short made in Nazi Germany).

LAST SEEN: On the Internet Archive and on YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: No sane U.S. label is going to put it into home entertainment release.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Nein.

The filmmakers of Nazi Germany were pathetically jealous of their counterparts in Hollywood. After all, the German cinema suffered a creative brain drain after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, with the greatest talents leaving for other countries while significantly inferior pro-Nazi talents remained behind.
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The Bootleg Files: See Ya Later Gladiator

Posted on April 14, 2023 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 828: “See Ya Later Gladiator” (1968 animated short with Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzalez).

LAST SEEN: On DailyMotion.com.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It seems to have fallen through the proverbial cracks.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely at the moment.

Fans of the Looney Tunes animation series will probably wince upon learning which film is in the spotlight in this column. “See Ya La Gladiator” has the sad distinction of being the last (and perhaps the least) of the theatrically produced Looney Tunes animated shorts featuring the classic-era characters – in this case, the severely mismatched pair of Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales.
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Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (2022)

Posted on December 18, 2022 by Phil Hall

The Walt Disney Co. hasn’t done very much since it acquired the trademark to the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit character in 2006 – for those unfamiliar with the back story, Walt Disney created Oswald for Universal Pictures in 1927 and made 27 silent black-and-white shorts. But Disney lost the rights to the character, at which point he created a new character called Mickey Mouse.
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The Bootleg Files: Hokey Wolf

Posted on July 1, 2022 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 806: “Hokey Wolf” (a short series of Hanna-Barbera cartoons from 1960-1961).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: Two episodes were included in a DVD release.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It fell through the cracks.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Probably not.

During the early 1960s, the Hanna-Barbera animation studio flooded television viewers with a surplus amount of cartoon mischief that quickly became incorporated into the popular culture. Creations including Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, The Flintstones, Top Cat and The Jetsons gained instant iconic status.
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The Bootleg Files: Wacky Wigwams

Posted on June 10, 2022 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 804: “Wacky Wigwams” (1942 animated short).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It fell through the cracks.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Probably not.

Unless you are a die-hard animation aficionado, there’s an excellent chance that you are unfamiliar with the output of Columbia Pictures’ Screen Gems animation studio in the 1930s and 1940s. Truth be told, their films were never as invigorating or innovative as those from the major Hollywood animation studios of the time, and their obscurity was compounded by not being part of the television rerun culture that ensured cult status for the Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation.
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The Bootleg Files: Half Baked Alaska

Posted on January 21, 2022 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 792: “Half Baked Alaska” (1965 animated short in the Chilly Willy series).

LAST SEEN: On B98.tv.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: Included in an anthology of Walter Lantz cartoons that is now out of print.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: No one is rushing to get it into home entertainment release.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: It was briefly available, and hopefully it will come back.

Among the cartoon characters from the Golden Age of animated short subjects, Chilly Willy occupies a strange niche. This Walter Lantz-created penguin was cute and mischievous, but the character’s films were rarely laugh-out-out hilarious and Chilly Willy never truly occupied the iconic status of other creations of that era. Most people would point to the Oscar-nominated, Tex Avery-directed 1955 short “The Legend of Rockabye Point” as being a peak in the Chilly Willy series, although most of the humor in that short does not come from the penguin himself.
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The Bootleg Files: Springtime for Clobber

Posted on July 9, 2021 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 773: “Springtime for Clobber” (1957 animated short by the notorious Gene Deitch).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It fell deep into the proverbial cracks.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: None, thank goodness.

Most film buffs may recall animator Gene Deitch as the inheritor of the Popeye and Tom and Jerry cartoon franchises – as well as being the man responsible for the worst additions to those respective, long-running series. He also created the egregious 1966 animated feature “Alice of Wonderland in Paris,” which I included in my book “The Greatest Bad Movies of All Time.”
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The Bootleg Files: Tokio Jokio

Posted on August 14, 2020 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 736: “Tokio Jokio” (1943 Looney Tunes cartoon).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On public domain labels.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: A lapsed copyright allows anyone to make dupes of this animated short.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: The folks at Warner Bros. aren’t particularly proud of this one!

Tomorrow marks the 75th anniversary of V-J Day, when Japan’s surrender to the Allied forces brought World War II to a long-overdue close. To help observe this important occasion, we are presenting a short film that generated relatively little attention when it was first released during World War II but has since taken on greater visibility for some of the most impolite examples of political incorrectness captured in an animated short.
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